By Doug Winter – RareGoldCoins.com

I had an interesting experience at the Long Beach show that I thought was worth sharing. A new-to-the-market collector/investor came up to my table and asked to see my “best coins.” I was happy to share them with him and pulled out a gorgeous 1802 quarter eagle in PCGS AU58 and a lovely 1798/7 eagle in PCGS AU55. After some back-and-forth negotiating, I could see this deal was not going to get done. The reasons why it didn’t are what I want to briefly discuss.

Now let me say in advance that the individual that I was dealing with is younger than I am, better looking than I am, smarter than I am and without a doubt much, much richer than I am. He’s someone whose family has had tremendous success investing in other areas and he is a recent convert to the rare coin market. But I think he’s approaching coins from a totally wrong perspective.

This guy likes deals. And he likes sexy, interesting coins. In other words, he wants to buy the best coins that I (or other dealers) have but he wants to buy them at levels that are unqualified, unquestionable “deals.” Good market or bad market, I don’t see this happening.

One thing that I have learned as a dealer in the last few years is that really good coins are really hard to find. Most of the great old-time collections have been dispersed and you just don’t see many “old time Gems” any more. Any when you do, like in the instance of the recent Naftzger Collection of late date Large Cents, the pent-up demand for the fresh, superb coins is so strong that they sell for crazy prices.

The investor I mentioned comes from a real estate background and he is, no doubt, used to panic sellers who have a nice piece of property but who are in over their heads and have to bail. Quickly. This doesn’t really seem to happen much anymore in the coin market. The speculators who bought the “deals” in the last Bull Market are the guys who bought the overgraded, overrated “stuff” that, in retrospect, maybe wasn’t such a good deal after all. The guys who bought the great coins and paid up for them aren’t selling. They aren’t selling because they don’t have to and because they know that what they have can’t be easily replaced. The “stuff” is what you tend to see, over and over, in auctions.
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